


before sunrise

by forestpenguin



Series: constellations [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Jedha, Pre-Canon, Pre-Rogue One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestpenguin/pseuds/forestpenguin
Summary: a long, long time ago, when jyn met bodhi.





	before sunrise

Jedha, Jyn learns, is very cold. 

She isn’t quite sure when she learned to associate sand with waves gently lapping at her ankles, but here there is no water: only oceans of sand and not much else.

In terms of landscape, at least.

But in terms of people, the small moon thrums with the energy of a thousand hearts beating at once. Several distinct languages puncture the still air with puffs of cold breath, and the scents of spices buffet her nose - each uniquely different but combining to form a singular harmony.

This is Jedha.

The inhabitants themselves reflect the atmosphere around them: the calls of shop owners, the chatter of old friends, the laughter of children - all mingle into a hubbub of undifferentiated voices. The entreaties of those on the edges, apart yet one with it all, chanting and murmuring things that she doesn’t quite understand -

_The Force is with -_

Jyn remembers her mother. Five years since hope was laid to rest in dark, dark, soil, yet she still needs to quash the lingering feelings that remain. She sets her hand down on a table, the few credits she clenched tightly now clattering across an old woman’s stall. Jyn’s handed a mug of something warm and filling in return. 

She sips at it carefully, wary of scalding her tongue. It doesn’t last long enough, and she stiffly sets the mug back on the table. 

Jyn turns her attention back to the task at hand:

She is lost.

Purposely so, another one of those training  _exercises_  - not games, only her real father would label  _preparation for the worst_  as a game - Saw is so fond of. 

She tugs at the fingers of her gloves, now sticking to her palms. 

_The galaxy is a scary place, and you need to be ready for it. Being a good teacher and a good father is hard. I might seem cold and distant, even harsh, but remember this: I do it all for you. Do you understand?_

Saw is like her father in more ways than he’d ever realize or that Jyn would care to tell.

They’d come to Jedha to gauge the strength of resistance here, to see if there was enough of a pulse for their Partisans to find a permanent home. Saw loved to use these missions as teachable moments: being a man of practicality and learning through experience.

Which leaves her here, alone, with a deadline. 

_Find me before sunrise. I know you can do this._

She lingers in the market square for a moment longer, eyes tracking the movement of a group of youth darting away from the crowds into an alleyway.

Something tells her to follow.

She pulls her scarf closer around her face and weaves her way through the crowd. She pushes without resistance: enough to make her way through but forgiving enough to not draw the attention of the two stormtroopers patrolling the area. When Jyn makes it into the alleyway, the flow of people has whittled down to a trickle. The only people in sight are the children peering at her from the windows of old apartments above. Fabrics hangs from the windows, fluttering in a gentle breeze. 

“Are you here to watch the races?”

Jyn stops in her tracks.

She turns on her heel and is face to face with a boy. 

He’s taller than her – most humans older than her are - and scraggly strands of hair frame his face, pushed out of his eyes by the goggles perched on his forehead. Dirt streaks his nose and accentuates the eager glint in his eyes. He’s fidgety, though, clasping and unclasping his hands.

It takes all of three seconds for Jyn to know he’s harmless.

“Actually,” Jyn says, “I’m lost.”

“Oh.” He looks disappointed, even though he’s only known her for barely a minute. “Well, I’d-I’d love to help you out, but the races are starting soon-”

“How long will they go for?”

The boy brightens. “Not that long. We, we start after sunset so nobody can see us – you know, parents, that sort of thing, People bet on us, you know, it’s a pretty big-You’re an offworlder.”

She nods curtly, wondering if he’d notices her dimming expression. 

“Sorry. But. I’d help you, but I have to go - unless you can wait? They’ll be done under two standard hours, and I think I’m racing earlier so I might be done before then?” 

Jyn could wait two hours, if it means she finds Saw more quickly.

She nods.

* * *

The boy - she finds out he races with the name  _Raven -_  is, from what she can understand, a great speeder racer. She watches from the sidelines, another face in the crowd, as he hops into his speeder and becomes a streak of light in the night. She supposes, in another universe, she’d be having fun. 

The children around her whoop and holler, waving brightly coloured strips of fabric, and soon enough she realizes she’s smiling as well.

Time slips by too quickly, and just over an hour later she feels a tap at her shoulder.

“We should go.”

He’s breathless, a change from the boy she saw climb into the speeder: face lined with determination, a mask of focus. He’s somehow managed to accumulate more streaks of grime and oil on his face, the blurred outline of where his goggles must have been shining starkly on his face.

She moves with him away from the crowd, pulled aside into the alley where they met.

“Where do you need to go, exactly?”

“The, um, landing platform. S-06, I think?” 

“That’s...” the boy frowns. “That’s near the outskirts. That’s,” his voice lowers, “resistance territory.”

Of course it was. 

Jyn watches his discomfort, painfully aware she’s treading on risky territory.

“Will you still take me there?”

“For sure,” the boy murmurs. “Just - keep your head down. Keep quiet? Okay. My - I-” he falters.

“You’ve been caught there before?” 

He shakes his head. “But - I know someone who has.” He visibly gulps. “He never came back.”

“The rebels took him?” she asks, eyebrows shooting up.

“No, it was - it was the Imps.”

Jyn loosens her shoulders. 

“Then I guess we’ll have to be careful.”

* * *

When they reach the platform her chrono tells her it’s almost midnight local. Darkness sweeps around them: infinitely murky and uniform.

She halts a few spots away from Saw’s ship, and turns to thank the boy.

He looks uneasier than he did before, and Jyn realizes the amount of stress she must’ve given him. Who knows what ghosts lurked here?

“Here,” she says, and slips some credits into his palm.

He stares at her blankly. 

“You don’t need to pay me.”

“I’m not,” she stresses. “I was betting on you.” 

Jyn turns away, before she can see the slow grin form on his face, and marches off to the ship.


End file.
